Development Researcher

LATIN AMERICA 2006: Making another world possible

Penelope Anthias — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 17:47:18 +0000

PUBLIC CONFERENCE, Satuday 2 December
Time: 9.30am - 5.00pm
Venue: TUC Congress House, Great Russell Street London WC1B 3LS Entrance: £10 (£6 concs.)
Directions: Nearest tube station: Tottenham Court Road.

From the Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela to Colombia's resistance to US-backed repression. From Cuba's experience of socialism and the fight against the blockade to Evo Morales' victory in Bolivia. From the struggles for indigenous peoples' rights, to the fight to control its destiny - Latin America is changing. From the southernmost tip of Pategonia to the Mexican-US border, the continent is fighting back. Progressives are on the offensive and people ...

The green revolution re-dux

Enrique Mendizabal — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 21:10:03 +0100

It did not work the first time aroud. But does it mean it can never work?

The new programme led by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Gates Foundation intends to see the development of local markets and local dealers to match the investments in agriculture inputs. This is all very well, but is it going to take into account national and local politics too, or is it going to fail to learn the lessons from the past.

Technology and markets need to come hand in hand; but politics and culture cannot be simply removed.

Policy engagement: How civil soceity can be more effective

Enrique Mendizabal — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 17:34:28 +0100

A new resource from the RAPID group at the Overseas Development Institute: a synthesis report on more than 18 months of research on how civil society organisations make use of evidence to influence policy. From their website:

Civil society organisations (CSOs) make a difference in international development. They provide development services and humanitarian relief, innovate in service delivery, build local capacity and advocate with and for the poor. Acting alone, however, their impact is limited in scope, scale and sustainability. CSOs need to engage in government policy processes more effectively.

With increased democratisation, reductions in conflict, and ...

Access More

Heidi Smith — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 18:53:07 +0100

Access More Development Research Information

UK Department for International Development (DFID) launched Research4Development, a guide to the latest DFID-funded research. It also provides information about previous research in rural livelihoods, health, social sciences, education, infrastructure and urban development.Visit http://www.research4development.info/index.asp for a complete access.

DFID’s American counter, U.S. Agency for International Development has a clearinghouse of reports produced by all projects categorized under project type like agriculture, democracy building, health, economic development and education. Visit http://dec.usaid.gov to subscribe to weekly updates or scan through previously published reports.

Does good governance contribute to pro-poor growth?

Enrique Mendizabal — Thu, 13 Apr 2006 11:06:17 +0100

Taken from: http://www.eldis.org/cf/search/disp/DocDisplay.cfm?Doc=DOC21550&resource=f1

Since the 1990s, the concept of good governance has taken center stage in development thinking and practice. While it has been increasingly viewed as a key ingredient for development, the decade also witnessed a renewed focus on poverty reduction as the major goal of development. This paper reviews the concepts of good governance and pro-poor growth, and develops a conceptual framework that specifies the linkages between different aspects of the two.

The paper uses the framework developed to review a range of quantitative cross-country studies that include measures of governance as independent variables and focuses on the ...

Otros Saberes / Other Americas

Heidi Smith — Tue, 11 Apr 2006 17:03:20 +0100

Have you ever been concerned about how to get really story and present quality research? Remember those quasi-experiments designs and other research tools in grad school? Ever think about how hard it is to get both a good research design and publish real good stories. Here is an idea to link both.

The Inter-American Foundation has partnered with the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) to link US based academics with local knowledge producers to publish stories and experiences from Latin America and the Caribbean. The “Otros Saberes,” or Other Americas, is a new collaborative research initiative. LASA ...

Knowledge Management: a key tool for researchers

Enrique Mendizabal — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 00:44:26 +0100

Do you know what you know? As researchers we are faced with a great challenge: the more knowledge we acquire the more difficult it becomes to manage and learn from it. Knowledge management tools and techniques exist to help us solve this problem. Most importantly, they can they can help us share with others what we have learned and learn from other's research and experiences.

For an institution, knowledge management is crucial. High turnover of staff often leads to a loss of more than just labour: know-how. Knowing how to learn from others and share what we know is critical ...

And now, the action

Enrique Mendizabal — Fri, 24 Mar 2006 14:22:19 +0000

2005 was the year of the Africa Commission, the G9 conference, the Live8 concert and the Make Poverty History campaign. Demands were made, promises were made. Now it is time to fulfill those promises, satisfy those demands. DFID has published an update of the commitments: future milestones to keep an eye for.

If completed, DFID expects that by the end of the year we would have:

An effective mechanism to ensure delivery of African and donor commitments, with first Africa Partnership Forum Annual Progress Report published in October 2006.
Increased aid in 2006 and plans in place to ...

A Change of Skin - Latin American Elections

Enrique Mendizabal — Thu, 23 Mar 2006 19:04:50 +0000

This year, 12 election will change the political face (and soul?) of Latin America. the ODI is launching a meeting series (in partnership with the Oxford University Latin American Society) to "discuss what the effects of these elections will be on the region as a whole, and on particular countries, with a focus on Brazil, Chile, Mexico, and Peru. It will serve as a discussion session for larger issues on the quality of democracy, governance, institutions and economics in Latin America, and the comparative lessons that might be drawn from the democratisation process the region is experiencing. "

Some recent ...

Statistics and participation?

Enrique Mendizabal — Thu, 23 Mar 2006 09:54:52 +0000

Often we find that in participatory processes, robust statistical analysis finds little support. No wonder econometricians are rarely seen in a workshop drawing on flip charts or assigning values to people and things with coloured pebbles. However, new work on how statistical methods and participatory approaches can be integrated is increasingly available. Barahona and Levy's paper is based on participatory surveys used to evaluate free agricultural inputs to smallholder farmers in Malawi. The paper describes a methodology that integrated statistical principles into the design of the participatory tools to be used in the workshops at the village level.

In a ...

New opportunities for better policy implementation

Enrique Mendizabal — Wed, 22 Mar 2006 20:18:59 +0000

Decentralisation is opening up new opportunities for better policy implementation. New research in Kenya suggests that the decentralisation of agricultural extension improves access. Most importantly, service also improved in quality and farmers reported to be more satisfied with them.

A similar result is observed from a better use of evidence when allocating health funds in a decentralised manner. The TEHIP case study is an example of how small changes in the process or the use of (sometimes very simple) evidence, in this case child mortality, can have significant effects on access and the quality of basic public services.

World Water Forum

Enrique Mendizabal — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 23:34:49 +0000

The 4th WWF is underway in Mexico. Alan Nichol from ODI is reporting live from the event -catch it all at the ODI Blog. This year, the Forum is focusing on local actions for a global challenge. As in most international events such as this one, civil soceity has been present both at the workshops and presentations as well as on the streets.

On a related issue, tomorow, March 22 is World Day for Water and UNESCO is leading this year's theme: Water and Culture. Its "draws attention to the fact that there are as many ways of viewing, ...

World Bank Report on Poverty in Peru

Enrique Mendizabal — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 21:46:55 +0000

The World Bank has been giving us some interesting excuses of 'double takes'. First it was the report on Poverty and Growth in Latin America which considers that Poverty must be tacled if the region ever wants to secure sustainable growth (wan it not the other way around what they proposed?). Now it publishes a Report on Peru with deals with the issue of inequality head on. It suggests that Peru needs to grow even more than other countries to defeat the process of poverty growth -and that current economic growth is biased towards capital rich sectors that do little ...

Re-launch

Enrique Mendizabal — Fri, 03 Feb 2006 21:10:02 +0000

Ok. I am going to give this another go. I've changed the format of the blog and I'll add new links to other development blogs. And I'll try to post something everyday. About anything liked to development research. I do hear and get emails about it pretty much every day, so I should be able to put something out here to make it worth your while reading a bit about development research.

Today, for example, I received the latest CIVICUS newsletter. They have a pretty good blog. That I just realized uses the same colours as this one; so ...